Critical discussion and annotated Web Log of examining one of Castell's five features of the information society: The tendency towards convergence produced by digitization

CRITICAL DISCUSSION AND ANNOTATED WEB LOG OF
MANUEL CASTELL’S THE TENDENCY TOWARDS CONVERGENCE PRODUCED BY DIGITIZATION AS
ONE FEATURE OF THE INFORMATION SOCIETY

INTRODUCTION

Society today is primarily marked
by globalization, digital living, information and communication technology, and
consumerism. Lifestyles are dictated by aggressive marketing of global companies
that are warmly accommodated through the open boundaries of every nation. Trends
are passed on across countries and continents as technology provides vast
opportunities for human interaction, communication and information exchange. In
addition, people are preoccupied with finding ways to get hold of the latest
digital gadgets so as to adapt to the changing mode of contemporary living.
Today, people constitute a big global citizenry, human living is subject to
updates, and interpersonal relationships occur in a virtual world.

The contemporary society places
vital importance to information and knowledge. The emphasis on the benefits of
information and communication technology reflects this mentality. The modern
world is in rush where people are encouraged to value convenience and proper
management of information. Time is a critical matter wherein everything has to
proceed in the shortest duration as possible. This is observable in the spread
of interactive human relations through the Internet and the change to an
information-centered social living.

AMAZON WEBSITE: AN EXAMPLE OF CASTELL’S IDEA ON
THE TENDENCY TOWARDS CONVERGENCE PRODUCED BY DIGITIZATION

Castell, a sociologist,
claims that the present times have given rise to a new society and economy that
is global, networked and informational. Castell says that the new society puts
immense value on information and networking making these two elements dictate
production processes, human experiences, administration of power and the kind of
culture that people live in. He formulated five features of the information
society based on “mass diffusion of information and communication innovations.”
One of these features states that the networked society paves the way for
convergence of specific technological innovations into a single integrated
system through digitization and electronic commerce (2002).

The website
www.amazon.com is primarily an electronic
bookstore that has changed the way books are sold and bought by readers. The
website offers an extensive line of choices with about 25 million titles, has
the capacity to identify and recognize consumer preferences as well as keep them
informed of new books available for sale (1998). Amazon employs state-of-the-art
technology in its warehouse and website. The company has developed a customized
information and dedicated ordering system, which are linked with suppliers for
automatic book ordering. The search engine employs XML and Oracle database
technology, which bring up results in a matter of seconds. Once the book or an
item is found, users sign in using the one-click system and the purchase is
complete. The company's software processes the orders through electronic
interfaces or electronic data interchange with suppliers and all the stages in
the supply chain are computerized (2004). The effective use of information and
communication technology has made Amazon a concrete example of convergence based
on the idea of Castell. The website is now both a bookstore and a department
store where products, customers, suppliers, and vendors can interact and
complete business transactions. The link is a place where all the products
that Amazon sells can be found. The site opens with a search engine that lists
product categories from books to DVDs, videos and music to beauty and fashion
items and to gourmet food and housewares. The website also provides a link to
browse the bestsellers of the company in different categories. Each bestseller
is presented through a product description, reviews and recommendations from
people who purchased the item. The link connects products with customers as
people can simply click on the mouse to view items that suit their lifestyles
and needs. The site also provides a venue for people to find a common ground and
become diverged with one another regardless of differences in backgrounds,
cultures and identities. The site accommodates music lovers, bookworms, fashion
trendsetters, beauty experts, mothers, professionals and so forth. Each of these
individuals logs into the site with their diverse personal interests and being
in the site brings them face to face with other people with their own unique
interests. The overlapping interests and identities in the website made possible
by technology and digitization renders a concrete foundation for collective
consumption and the consumer society. The network society, in the words of
Castell, is a capitalist society wherein modes of production are managed
privately; consumers and producers are governed by capitalist economic
relations; and each society is subsumed in the global market economy (2002). In
the capitalist society, consumers often share physical spaces of consumption
such as tourist spots, shopping malls, sports activity venues, and restaurants
without really having any actual social interaction. Consumer lifestyles and
preferences can change based on access to trends and lifestyles from other parts
of the world (Scranton 2005, p. 13). The Amazon link where products and
consumers, and consumers and consumers converge is another physical space that
reflects what Castell and Scranton say about the network society in the
information era. The site gives access to consumers on the latest consumer
product out in the market. Some customers log in with already established ideas
and standards for a specific product. The need to log in to Amazon is to know
the prevailing prices and if there are better offers. However, some log in just
to browse. When these consumers come across testimonials and recommendations of
anonymous customers, their perception regarding a product can be formed or can
change. Thus, the tendency for the transfer of preferences and lifestyles become
more possible. and (2003) claim that consumers in the modern world oftentimes
permit a computer database of suggestions and recommendations from registered
users (a sample is such website as amazon.com) to improve the data-processing
aspects of their lives enough to let them make retail choices based on other
people’s ideas - people whose identities are concealed in the anonymity of the
World Wide Web ().

Accordingly, the link
is a venue for publishers, authors, music
labels and recording studios to advertise, market and sell their products
through Amazon. The site provides vendors and suppliers the chance to promote
their products and items, collect orders, and deliver completed orders to
customers within 24 hours. The site also explains to vendors how their products
are marketed to customers as well as provides a chance to constantly update
their product information. A connecting link for
publishers selling professional, medical and technical books provides a chance
to meet other members of Amazon. The site displays testimonials from officials
of other member-companies on the advantages of Amazon in their marketing efforts
and organizational performance. This site is helpful for potential members to
know what they can avail of when they decide to commit to an Amazon membership.
The two vendor sites are very promising venues for interactive networking
between global firms and corporations. The sites are models of what Castell
termed as the global/informational city wherein economic production and
transactions are coordinated, innovated and managed by the interconnected
activities of networks of various firms. Advanced technologies such as the
Internet provides firms from all points of the globe the ability to target
customers and fulfill corporate objectives through electronic commerce,
knowledge generation and consistent flows of information (1996). The two links
in the Amazon website cited above are instrumental in enabling global firms to
promote and sell their product and gain competitive advantage through online
information, and electronic order and delivery systems that are products of
digitization. These run parallel to what Castell said about the new economy
being informational, global and networked (2002). The Amazon links for vendors
arrange information so that customers can access it in the most coherent way
possible and help them make choices. The links are global and networked because
firms from within and outside the United States can register for membership,
promote products in the language of the country where the vendor comes from,
contribute to the development of a more diverse online consumer market, gain
access to market intelligence through the information on other companies
provided in the site, gather market strategies, and attain corporate profits for
themselves in the process ().

Furthermore, a related Amazon link
for vendors tackles every possible
question that a vendor can have relative to membership in the company. The site
boasts that Amazon accommodates transactions “24 hours a day, 7 days a week and
365 days a year” so as to ensure that products can reach the customers who are
most likely to appreciate and benefit from them as well as maintain its
international reputation of excellent, reliable and secure service. These
statements reflect the concepts of “flexibility” and “timeless time” by .
state that the fourth characteristic of the information technology paradigm
requires social processes, organizational structures and institutional forms to
possess flexibility so as to ensure that activities and mechanisms within these
various entities can metamorphose when unforeseen changes and unpredictability
call for it (2002). Also, the modern information society values liquidity,
fluidity, mobility, synchronicity and speed in numerous social, economic and
political processes. Timeless time becomes the norm for existence as
contemporary living puts emphasis on convenience, ease, and rapid human
exchanges (2006). Amazon provides answers to the contemporary requirement of
flexibility and timeless time. The website has the ability to capture what the
customer wants through product reviews and recommendations being posted in the
websites. According to (2003) the key to competing in the information age
is gathering, filtering, and organizing information. Understanding the
requirements of customers, employing proactive strategies for gathering and
organizing of information, and a significant investment in intelligence
gathering capabilities are central to sustainable competitive advantage. There
are many ways to gather information effectively. One of them is through a
customer feedback system. Feedback is critical to understanding customer needs
and to fine-tuning products and services. Amazon.com always gathers feedback
from customers when making changes to its website (). The abovementioned ideas
are supported by Castells’ notion that the contemporary mode of economy and
society rely heavily on information processing, knowledge generation and
management, symbolic communication, flexibility, networking and convergence. In
this new society, productivity and competitive advantage of firms and
corporations are dictated by their capacity to accumulate, manage and use
information to meet the demands of modern citizens and contemporary social
living (2002). The website also enables vendors to update details of their
consumer products and items so that the consumers can access the latest
information there is and therefore help them to decide the best option for them.
Moreover, the website can be conveniently accessed anytime and anywhere as long
as there is an Internet connection. The customer can place the order in the
website and shipment of the product can take place within 24 hours. The company
has an online customer service page available at all times . The link also
reflects flexibility as portions for sellers and customers are separated and any
complainant can navigate the self-help buttons or send the company an email
about inquiries not answered through the self-help component. Bill Gates, owner
of the software giant Microsoft, states “I buy all my books at Amazon.com
because I'm busy and it's convenient. They have a big selection, and they've
been reliable ( 2004).

The Amazon website basically adopts
information management, convergence, flexibility, and timeless time in its
entirety. The website offers a wide array of consumer products that can answer
the need of every possible consumer there is. The website does not only provide
consumer products for general and basic needs but special occasions and purposes
as well. Links like which displays the latest gift items for special occasions
(Valentine’s Day at present) and which
helps future brides and grooms in wedding registry and planning are two examples
of specialized product category offered by Amazon. The gift central/special
occasion link offers information on the best gift items for every specific
special occasion based on price, relationship with, age and personality of the
person who will receive the gift, and type of gift. The wedding page, on the
other hand, contains do-it-yourself wedding ideas, information on family
affairs, wedding planning guides, and a wedding registry option. The two
websites bind consumers and vendors during occasions that call for a more
special type of product and gift item that would make the occasion more
meaningful for consumers. Castell puts forward that the network in today’s
society is actually the enterprise. The network enterprise is a lean agency of
economic activity wherein business mechanisms and practices are facilitated in
an “ad hoc” manner depending upon specific and short-lived demands ( 2005). The
two special Amazon sites serve consumers on an ad hoc basis as only products for
special events are featured in the sites. The Amazon website also hosts both
consumer preferences and vendor information so that customers and sellers can
both have unrestricted access to various goods and services that the modern
person needs. Every consumer or vendor can easily access the website and can
contribute ideas and information that may help in the continuous transaction of
the company. Generally, Amazon.com is a highly influential online community
where lifestyles, personal identities, preferences, and social resources meet to
ensure that the society can have a ready response to every specific need or
want.